Tempest- Context (Arden) Flashcards
When was the Tempest first performed?
1610-23
At what important event was ‘The Tempest’ performed?
Princess Elizabeth’s wedding
What part of Alonso’s story is reflective of events at court?
- Alonso’s sadness at having lost his son and then married his daughter to a foreign Prince
- The death of James I’s son Henry and the marriage of Elizabeth a year later
[Observed by David Scott Kastan]
With what foreign politics are there parallels with Prospero?
Rudolph II of the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia
* lost the throne to his brother
* much like Prospero- retreated to the palace library and consoled himself with books
What texts, on ‘New World’ exploration, might Shakespeare have taken inspiration?
- Richard Eden’s Travel Anthologies
- Pigafetta’s short account of the Magellan expeditions
How does Pigafetta describe the gods that the Pategonians worship?
That they “worshipped a greate devyll Setebos” → first known precursor of Sycorax’s deity
What does Pigafetta describe that Shakespeare may have taken inspiration from?
- Natural phenomenon of St Elmo’s fire → resembled witchcraft
- great tempests
- giants and ‘Canibales’ → Caliban
How could Shakespeare have taken influence from Francis Fletcher?
- His journal of Francis Drake’s circumnavigation 1577-1580
- description of a ‘most deadly tempest’
- a deity called “Settaboh”
- a native suddenly addicted to European wine
What true story of marooned explorers could have inspired Willi Shakers
George Summer’s- Sea Venture
* although not published until 1625 in the ‘True Reportory’ London’s cultural and political readers most probably read it beforehand
What account was in circulation before 1610 that was more anti-colonialism
John Smith’s account of Virginia, emphasising disruptive colonists, inept aristocratic leaders and resentful natives
